TW201539272A - Touch panel capable of reducing frame area - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention discloses a touch panel capable of reducing a frame area. The touch panel comprises a transparent substrate; the surface of the transparent substrate is provided with a sensing area and the frame area at the periphery of the sensing area; the transparent substrate is sequentially provided with a first conducting layer, an insulating layer and a second conducting layer; the first conducting layer forms a plurality of transparent electrode serials in the sensing area of the transparent substrate, and forms a plurality of first conductor wires in the frame area; the second conducting layer forms a plurality of second conductor wires in the frame area; the transparent electrode serials are connected between the first conductor wires and the second conductor wires; meanwhile, the first conductor wires and the second conductor wires are separated by the insulating layer. The conductor wires in different layers are formed in the frame area of the panel, and the area occupied by the frame area can be reduced.

Description

Touch panel with reduced border area

The present invention relates to a touch panel, and more particularly to a touch panel that can reduce a frame area.

In recent years, touch panels have been widely used in a variety of electronic products, such as: Global Positioning System (GPS), personal digital assistant (PDA), cellular phone and palm-sized A computer (Hand-held PC), etc., to replace traditional input devices (such as keyboards and mice). This drastic change in design not only enhances the human-machine interface affinity of these electronic devices, but also frees up more space by omitting the traditional input device for installing a larger display panel for users to browse data. .

Looking at the existing touch panels, there are resistive, capacitive, sonic and optical. Under the principle of various large projects, many different types of production methods have been derived. For example, resistors have 8-wire, 7-wire, 6-wire, 5-wire, 4-wire, and digital resistors. Capacitors have surface capacitance. , digital capacitors (multi-touch capacitive type), etc.; optical type with infrared shielding, total reflection suppression, etc. As shown in FIG. 1 , FIG. 2 and FIG. 3 , a conventional touch panel includes a transparent substrate 10 , exemplified by a-a′ line, and a transparent conductive layer 12 is sequentially disposed on the transparent substrate 10 . a first insulating layer 14, a second conductive layer 16, and a second insulating layer 18, wherein the first transparent conductive The layer 12 is formed in the sensing region of the transparent substrate 10 to form a plurality of transparent conductive electrode serials 20, and the second conductive layer 16 forms a plurality of conductive lines 22 in the frame region of the transparent substrate 10. The conductive lines 22 are connected to the plurality of pads 23. Since the conductive lines 22 are all formed by the second conductive layer 16 of the same layer, in the etching process, there must be a gap g between the conductive lines 22, otherwise it is easy to cause an open circuit or a short circuit; in terms of the electrical surface, the same layer Do not be too close to the transparent conductive line 22 will also affect each other's signal. Since many of today's products require a smaller border area, the spacing between the lines takes up a lot of space with existing technology.

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above problems, and proposes a touch panel capable of reducing the frame area to solve the problems caused by the prior art.

The main purpose of the present invention is to provide a touch panel which is formed by interleaving conductive lines interposed between different layers to reduce the area occupied by the frame area.

To achieve the above objective, the present invention provides a touch panel capable of reducing a frame area, which comprises a transparent substrate having a sensing area and a surrounding area of the surrounding area. A first conductive layer is disposed on the transparent substrate, and the plurality of first conductive lines are formed in the frame region. A first insulating layer is disposed on the transparent substrate and the first conductive layer to cover the first conductive layer. A second conductive layer is disposed on the first insulating layer to form a plurality of second conductive lines in the frame region. In a horizontal direction of the surface of the parallel transparent substrate, the first conductive line and the second conductive line are alternately arranged alternately.

For the purpose of making the structure and characteristics of the present invention For further understanding and understanding, please refer to the preferred embodiment diagram and the detailed description, as explained below:

10‧‧‧Transparent substrate

12‧‧‧First transparent conductive layer

14‧‧‧First insulation

16‧‧‧Second conductive layer

18‧‧‧Second insulation

20‧‧‧Transparent conductive electrode series

22‧‧‧Flexible wire

23‧‧‧ pads

24‧‧‧Transparent substrate

26‧‧‧First conductive layer

28‧‧‧Transparent electrode series

30‧‧‧First conductive line

32‧‧‧ pads

34‧‧‧First insulation

36‧‧‧Second conductive layer

38‧‧‧Second conductive line

40‧‧‧Second insulation

FIG. 1 is a schematic view showing a layout of a transparent electrode string and a conductive line of a touch panel of the prior art.

Fig. 2 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure taken along line a-a' in Fig. 1.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of the layout of the pads and conductive lines of the touch panel of the prior art.

Figure 4 is a schematic view showing the layout of the first embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure taken along line b-b' of Fig. 4 of the present invention.

Fig. 6 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure taken along line c-c' in Fig. 4 of the present invention.

Figure 7 is a schematic view showing the layout of a second embodiment of the present invention.

Figure 8 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure taken along line d-d' of Figure 7 of the present invention.

Figure 9 is a schematic view showing the layout of a third embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 10 is a cross-sectional view showing the structure taken along line e-e' in Fig. 9 of the present invention.

The invention mainly proposes a "Narrow Border" design in response to the current mainstream market, generally refers to the width of the border on the left and right sides of the screen to the visible area. Taking the mobile phone as an example, the mobile phone has a long side of the rectangular screen, and The black (white) side of the two sides is narrower for the opaque metal connecting line, and because the two sides are longer, it may be unilateral or bilaterally driven, and the present invention mainly insulates the edge of the X-axis. Separated layers, using different layer designs to reduce the distance between the lines Achieve a narrow border effect.

Referring to Fig. 4, Fig. 5, and Fig. 6, Fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along line b-b' of Fig. 4, and Fig. 6 is a cross-sectional view taken along line c-c' of Fig. 4. The first embodiment of the present invention comprises a transparent substrate 24, such as a glass substrate or a transparent resin substrate, the surface of which has a sensing area and a surrounding border area thereof, that is, an area inside and outside the virtual frame of FIG. 4, respectively. . The transparent substrate 24 is provided with a first conductive layer 26, which may be made of indium tin oxide or metal. Here, a transparent conductive layer made of indium tin oxide is taken as an example. The first conductive layer 26 forms a plurality of transparent electrode serials 28 in the sensing region, and forms a plurality of first conductive lines 30 in the frame region. In addition, a plurality of pads 32 for external telecommunication transmission are provided in the frame area, and the material thereof can be any conductive material, so that a part of the transparent electrode series 28 and a part of the pads 32 are connected to the first conductive line 30. The material of the pad 32 is exemplified by a metal, so it is indicated by a hatching. A first insulating layer 34 is disposed on the transparent substrate 24 and the first conductive layer 26, and covers the first conductive layer 26 of the frame region. The first insulating layer 34 may be an organic material or an inorganic material. The first insulating layer 34 is provided with a second conductive layer 36 which is formed in the frame region to form a plurality of second conductive lines 38 for connecting the remaining transparent electrode series 28 and the remaining pads 32. The material of the second conductive layer 36 may be indium tin oxide or metal, and is also a metal here, and is also indicated by a hatching. A region surrounded by a virtual frame is disposed on the frame region. The corresponding first insulating layer 34 is provided with a hole through which the pad 32 can be connected to the first conductive line 30. In addition, since the second conductive layer 36 and the pads 32 are both metal, they can be integrally formed to be connected to each other in the same process. In the horizontal and vertical directions of the surface of the parallel transparent substrate 24, the first conductive line 30 and the second conductive line 38 are alternately arranged side by side, so that the vertical line segments of the first conductive line 30 and the second conductive line 38 are parallel. The distance between the surfaces of the surface of the substrate 24 in the horizontal direction may be shortened, and the distance between the horizontal lines of the first conductive line 30 and the second conductive line 38 in the vertical direction of the surface of the parallel transparent substrate 24 may also be Shortened. The invention refers to the two parallel conductive lines respectively to different layers, and reduces the space waste caused by the spacing between the conductive lines, so as to achieve the effect of reducing the border area of the touch panel. Finally, a second insulating layer 40 is disposed on the first insulating layer 34 and the second conductive layer 36, and the material thereof may be an organic material or an inorganic material.

If the material of the first conductive layer 26 is indium tin oxide, the electrical resistance is greater than the second conductive layer 36 made of metal, such as silver. Therefore, in design, if the same conduction speed is to be achieved, the width of the second conductive line 38 made of metal is smaller than the first conductive line 30 made of indium tin oxide.

For example, in order to reduce the frame area of the touch panel, the line width of each of the second conductive lines 38 may be set to be the distance between the adjacent two first conductive lines 30, and the line width of each of the first conductive lines 30 is adjacent. The distance between the second conductive lines 38 can reduce the horizontal spacing between the conductive lines and the conductive lines, thereby reducing the area occupied by the frame area. The first conductive line 30 and the second conductive line 38 between the two phases of the present invention belong to the first conductive layer 26 and the second conductive layer 36, respectively, and belong to different layers, so in terms of process, the single layer is the first The spacing of the conductive lines 30 needs to be maintained, so that the process is not affected; and the first conductive layer 34 is separated from the second conductive layer 36 by two layers, so that there is no electrical property. Being too close together causes the interaction between the signals.

Prove by mathematical proof, assuming that the line width of the original design conductive line is W, line and line The spacing between the two is G and N conductive lines, and the wiring space B of the frame area is as shown in the formula (1) B=(W+G)×N (1)

The second conductive line 38 of the present invention is interposed between the first conductive lines 30, so that the line widths of the first conductive line 30 and the second conductive line 38 of the present invention are both W, and the total number of the two is N. The first conductive lines 30 are spaced apart from each other by G, and the second conductive lines 38 are also spaced apart from each other by G. Therefore, as a whole, the trace space B of the new border area is B as shown in the formula (2), = (W + (GW) / 2) × N = ((W + G) / 2) × N = ( (W+G)×N)/2=B/2 (2)

It can be seen from the formula (2) that the wiring space of the border area of the touch panel can be saved by half.

The manufacturing process of the touch panel of the present invention also includes two types, one is to sequentially form the first conductive layer 26 having the X-axis or the Y-axis transparent electrode series, the first insulating layer 34, the second conductive layer 36 and the first The process of the two insulating layers 40, and the other is to sequentially form the second conductive layer 36, the conductive layer having the X-axis or the Y-axis transparent electrode series, the first insulating layer 34, and the transparent electrode string having the Y-axis or the X-axis. The process of the first conductive layer 26 and the second insulating layer 40 is listed.

The present invention also provides a second embodiment and a third embodiment. The second embodiment differs from the first embodiment only in that the second conductive line 38 of the second embodiment overlaps with the first conductive line 30, The third embodiment differs from the first embodiment only in that the second conductive line 38 of the third embodiment is interleaved with the first conductive line 30. These two embodiments can also reduce the distance between the lines to achieve a narrow border effect.

In the above three embodiments, the traces are arranged on one of the left and right sides of the frame area. Side to complete the design of the single side routing. If both sides of the upper and lower sides of the drive are to be designed at the same time, the technique of the present invention can also be used to place the traces used for the bilateral drive in the unlined space on the left and right sides of the frame area.

In summary, the present invention realizes that the conductive lines of the touch panel are realized by two different conductive layers, and are arranged with each other to achieve the purpose of narrowing the frame area.

24‧‧‧Transparent substrate

26‧‧‧First conductive layer

28‧‧‧Transparent electrode series

30‧‧‧First conductive line

32‧‧‧ pads

36‧‧‧Second conductive layer

38‧‧‧Second conductive line

Claims (9)

A touch panel capable of reducing a frame area, comprising: a transparent substrate having a sensing area and a surrounding area of the surrounding area; a first conductive layer disposed on the transparent substrate to form the frame area a plurality of first conductive lines; a first insulating layer disposed on the transparent substrate and the first conductive layer to cover the first conductive layer; a second conductive layer disposed on the first insulating layer Forming a plurality of second conductive lines in the frame region, the first conductive layer forming a plurality of electrode arrays in the sensing region to connect the first conductive lines and the second conductive lines; and a plurality of pads The frame is located in the frame area and connects the first conductive lines and the second conductive lines. The touch panel of the reduced frame area of claim 1 further includes a second insulating layer disposed on the first insulating layer and the second conductive layer. The touch panel of the reduced area of the frame according to claim 1, wherein the first conductive lines and the second conductive lines are alternately arranged side by side in a direction parallel to the surface of the transparent substrate. The touch panel of the reduced area of the frame of claim 1, wherein the first conductive lines overlap or overlap with the second conductive lines. The touch panel of the reduced area of the frame according to claim 1, wherein the first conductive layer is a transparent conductive layer, and the electrode strings are arranged in a transparent electrode series. The touch panel of the reduced frame area according to claim 1, wherein the first conductive layer is made of indium tin oxide. The touch panel of the reduced frame area according to claim 1, wherein the second conductive layer The material is metal or indium tin oxide. The touch panel of the reduced frame area according to claim 1, wherein the transparent substrate is a glass substrate or a transparent resin substrate. The touch panel of the reduced area of the frame of claim 1, wherein the material of the first conductive layer is indium tin oxide, and the material of the second conductive layer is metal, the second conductive material is metal The width of the line needs to be smaller than the first conductive lines of indium tin oxide.